A Cowboy Found His Mail-Order Bride Hurt and Silent — The Note Beside Her Told a Shocking Truth

Chapter 2

“Mama. Mama, come on. I got you.”

The little one dropped off the step and immediately turned back, both arms raised, fingers opening and closing against the cold. Behind her, the older girl came out: ten years old, auburn hair, brown eyes, a face that had learned early and well not to show what was happening behind it. She stepped down without hesitation and put herself at her sister’s side, one hand on the small shoulder, steady, automatic, the way a soldier stands a post.

Then the woman came through the door, and her boot found the ice on the bottom step, and she went down hard.

Hands and knees hitting the frozen mud. The impact drove a sound out of her that she clearly had not meant to make — short, sharp, bitten off the moment it began. Both girls cried out. The little one grabbed for her mother’s arm. The older one dropped to her knees and got both hands under her mother’s elbow.

“Mama. I got you. I got you.”